The usual coal seam is only a few feet high, so a low tunnel leads to the mine face where coal from a mining machine must be loaded onto a shuttle car. The lack of headroom prevents the use of fast bulk loaders such as an overhead hopper that can store mined coal and dump it all at once into a shuttle car. As a result, slow conveyors are used which require only inches clearance over a low-slung shuttle car, and the car must remain in place while it is slowly filled. This generally requires that the mining machine stop operating when a loaded shuttle car moves away and while waiting for a next one to move into position. As a result, a surplus of shuttle cars and their drivers are required, with most of the working time of the cars being spent in waiting for their turn to get into the loading position, and in waiting to be loaded. A system which could avoid the need for surplus shuttle cars and their drivers, and which enabled rapid loading of a car when it reached the area of the mine working face, all while avoiding the need to intermittently stop operation of the mining machine, would be of considerable value.